ABBA - Virtual Reality Tour - 2019

Finally more details on Virtual ABBA! It seems quite promising to me, and I wonder if the pre-recorded vocals they're using are from the 1977 tour?

I find it funny that the articles keep on calling it a reunion tour when it's clearly not an ABBA reunion. Also it's interesting that one of the articles says that "any Abba fan knows it does not count" about the private performance last year, because I'm an ABBA fan and it sure counts as a reunion to me. xD

Here are more details about the ABBA 'Virtual Reality Tour'. So, the 'Tour' may well be a true one,
rather than the 'Holograms' performing at the same venue. If you think about it - they could make
several 'Virtual Reality' ABBA's, & they could 'Tour' several Countries at the same time! In fact, if
they made 6 'Virtual ABBA' they could be 'Touring' the 6 main Continents at once - Europe, Asia,
Africa, North America, South America & Australia. I guess, they need not bother with Antarctica,
as there are only a few thousand Scientists etc. there - about 4,000 in Summer & 1,000 in Winter.

From: 'The Irish Times' -- Saturday 16th September 2017: 

ABBA-tars: Super Troupers return, and somewhere in the crowd there’s you

Björn, Agnetha, Benny and Anni-Frid are back – as you haven’t seen them since 1977

by Brian Boyd

Since splitting up in 1982, ABBA – one of the most successful and loved music groups of all time – has had almost daily offers to reform. Some 15 years ago the four members of the band sat in a room together and seriously discussed reforming for a series of live shows after they received a $1 billion offer.
“We were going to do the shows and build a hospital with the money,” Björn Ulvaeus told this reporter.
But that offer – like thousands of others – ultimately came to nothing. Hence the surprise this week when ABBA officially confirmed they were getting back together to tour in 2019. But only in virtual reality.
All four members of the best-selling band: Björn, Agnetha, Benny and Anni-Frid are being digitised using techniques that capture them as they were in their spandex prime.
Using audio from previous live ABBA concerts, a digital ABBA will be shining like the sun, smiling, having fun on stages once again. The band are all now in their late 60s or early 70s and have little appetite to schlep around the live circuit in person. But this virtual reality tour is no cheap gimmick. The giant Universal record label and Simon Fuller (the impresario behind the Spice Girls and The X Factor) are looking to re-imagine the live entertainment economy with this virtual ABBA tour.

As Fuller said this week: “The creativity and ideas flowing from the members of ABBA over the past few months have filled me with great excitement. We are exploring a new technological world, with virtual reality and artificial intelligence at the forefront, that will allow us to create new forms of entertainment and content we couldn’t have previously imagined.”

Digital avatars

It’s now all too common, when a major-league live act announces a visit, the expensively priced tickets sell out in minutes, leaving many fans disappointed. The live tour economy is buoyant, and demand far outstrips supply.
Given that a major act can only get to certain places at certain times, the entertainment industry has been investing heavily for some time in the concept of the virtual reality substitute tour.
If the original ABBA fans find the idea of going to see digital avatars of a group preposterous, the next generation of gig-going age has grown up with hyper-realistic video games and see the world differently.
The music industry has already tried out the idea. In 2012 the rapper Tupac Shakur (who died in 1996) appeared as a hologram at that year’s Coachella music festival. In 2014 a moonwalking Michael Jackson hologram appeared at the Billboard music awards, five years after his death.
The Universal Music Group, Simon Fuller and ABBA are not going to get involved in a poorly thought out and cheaply executed technological publicity stunt.

"ABBA has a far bigger commercial reach, and could be a more effective test case for this new “live music” concept"

A lot of attention will be focused on a world tour by the heavy metal singer Ronnie James Dio which kicks off this November. Dio died in 2010 but the Dio Returns tour features a hologram of the singer being backed by the musicians who used to play with him. Dio’s live vocals each night will be taken from previous performances in his career.
Dio Returns will play in venues across Europe, South America, Australia, Asia and the US. Live music promoters are not known for being generous with their money, so the fact that so many venues have already booked the Dio Returns show suggests there is a market for hologram/virtual reality tours.

New live entertainment format

ABBA, however, are a different proposition. They have a far bigger commercial reach, and could be a more effective test case for this new “live music” concept.
Such is the still massive appetite for ABBA’s pop music that the stage musical Mamma Mia (based on their songs) has grossed more than $2 billion worldwide since opening in 1999. The 2008 film adaptation of Mamma Mia became the highest-grossing musical film of all time. The band’s greatest hits collection, Gold – originally released in 1992 – is still selling healthily.
ABBA guard their legacy jealously (they wouldn’t let their name be used in the Mamma Mia musical), and they hardly need the money that a virtual tour might make them. A motivating force, however, may be to pioneer a new live entertainment format in which they’re (albeit digitally) front and centre.
The details of the technology being used to bring ABBA to digital life are a closely guarded secret. It’s unclear, too, what type of venues virtual ABBA will play in or how the overall product will be controlled and distributed.
What is known is that, following ABBA’s announcement, industry talk has already begun about virtual reality “de-ageing” tours, including the possibility of Fleetwood Mac performing their Rumours album looking and sounding as they did when it was released in 1977.
ABBA aren’t the only ones who don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.

The prospect of using pre-recorded vocals surely is exciting - they could possibly recreate both ABBA's world tours and that is something most ABBA fans would kill for to see, I'm quite certain. However the question is, what next? After seeing the 1977 and 1979 concerts in their entirety few times, even the craziest of ABBA fans will get tired of it. And there's not much more they can do with it. There is no recording of the 1975 tour and what else is left? Recreations of famous ABBA TV-Specials? Brand "new" performances of studio recordings? Personally I would not spend money on something like that...

Australia's Channel 7 showed a new ABBA Documentary at 8 pm tonight.

It has caused the 2014 3 CD 'ABBA Gold' to re-enter the Australian iTunes Chart,
at No.4. The 1992 'ABBA Gold' has re-entered at No.5. 'Arrival' is in at No.32.

Here is the Documentary - in 5 Parts.

Link:

au.tv.yahoo.com/plus7/sunday-night/a/37120331/the-australian-exclusive-abba-s-future-revealed/

The UK's 'Daily Mail' has done an Article about the Virtual Reality ABBA Tour, as regards Australia.

Link:

www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-4891838/ABBA-tour-Australia-2019-HOLOGRAMS.html#comments

There are several Comments beneath it. Mine is under Colin333.

I think that people are going to have to face a new 'Reality'. Eventually, such Tours will be normal & many old

Acts will be seen Touring, that way. Not just ABBA, but The Beatles - all 4 of them again, the Rolling Stones, (as

they looked in 1965 etc.), Queen - complete with Freddie Mercury, Fleetwood Mac, as they were in 1977, and

many more.

50 bucks says this is what its going to be

www.cnbc.com/2017/08/11/musicians-are-coming-back-to-life-thanks-to-holograms.html

I suspect they will use the studio vocals, as anything recorded in an actual concert will have bleed from the other instruments, audio drop outs, other technical issues

I really like this idea.

One reason is that sometimes there is something worse than not seeing one of your favorite acts decades after their prime. Sometimes it's worse to see them and be disappointed. (Ask some fans of Van Halen) The members of ABBA have been very smart about this over the years. They know they can never live up to the past. Youthful energy cannot be faked.

And even if it's the same vocals in every show, the "getting together in a room with thousands of ABBA fans" thing will make it special every time. And this can be something that works just as well in 2150 for a group of yet unborn fans who will love seeing this special group of people performing for them.

I'll also admit I like the idea of ABBA being the act to break new ground in entertainment. Their legacy is secure of course, but this could raise their historical profile even more.

I'm quite curious as to why they just used old interviews with Agnetha and Bjorn in 2013 and act as if it's new. Besides that, it's definitely a nice documentary and I like the new segments with Benny.

Benny at 25:07 is revealing of their mindset about reforming post breakup.    I've heard that sentiment before regarding "expectations" and how they didn't think they could ever live up to them.   (It's a good point)   So I wonder if that feeling comes from Benny originally?

And then that look on the interviewer's face at 33:11 pretty much says it all.   Pure joy at hearing Benny play the music.

.... as they have done, so many times before 

I think a live concert could be a disappointment considering the age they have and Agnetha doesn´t like to tour.
I would prefer if they launched a new music album because they still have good voices.

With no prospect of the real thing, I think this could work. A new album would be nice. I think Abba have made the right decision about not performing live. They have retired from live performances with dignity. Some other bands resemble spitting image puppets and need to call it a day.

http://instagr.am/p/BhZqk3UBRt-

I had a feeling they'd use their 1979 setup.  Do you think they'd be recreating the whole 1979 concert or just their appearances?  I personally would prefer the way they looked in 1977, or even 1975, but 1979 is good.

I completely agree. Regardless of my personal preferences as to what their 'best' period was, music-wise, I'd readily concede that (at least in UK terms) 1977 was the year of 'peak ABBA'. Having done the hard graft in 1976 in terms of establishing themselves at the very top table and joining the serried ranks of pop royalty, 1977 was the year of consolidation - two massive Number Ones simply cemented that megastar status. That's the year that should be immortalised!  

I don't see why the ABBA holograms/avatars can't have a costume change? Then we could get the looks from 1977 and 1979- the best of BOTH worlds.

Only, please... PLEASE no perms or short hair! Agnetha and Frida must have their long, lustrous locks from their peak.